Quick Info crash/eclipsed moon/CCD/scope

Bill J Gray Mar 24, 2003

Hi Bernd,

By 'i-button', Robert meant the Quick Info toolbar button. (I
made the same assumption at first.) I asked Robert to send me his
'startup.mar' file. Using his settings, I still can't get the
crash he mentions. If anyone else is seeing crashes with the
current test update, please let me know. (Robert is running
in German, with everything installed to the hard drive except
non-German languages.)

A while ago, the moon did turn orange when in eclipse, which
was a better idea than having it just turn dark. I've revised
Guide to return to this. I've also added Oliver Kloes' suggested
revision for the CCD frame in alt/az mode: in this mode, the
CCD frame is tilted relative to the horizon, not to celestial
north, and the effects of field rotation become apparent.

Bernd, a difference of 2 to 4 arcminutes sounds like a
difference between coordinates of date and J2000 (the
amount of precession over the last 3.2 years.) Guide's
LX-200 control assumes that the scope accepts coordinates
of date; it's possible that the FS2 system takes J2000
data instead. Add the following line to 'guide.dat':

SCOPE_EPOCH=2000

If my diagnosis is right, the problem will vanish.

-- Bill